Saving Grace
by Gunpowder Green Tea
Summary: Saving Grace is a mental hospital. Yugi Mouto, Edward Elric and Ryoma Echizen are patients there. This is their story. crossover


A.N: This isn't something I expect to be popular. It's an odd mix of fandoms. Still this story demanded to be posted so I hope you enjoy. S.G. is going to focus on all three characters, but Yugi/Yami will be the main character, though that may not be clear in this chapter. I'm posting at least one companion piece to this, called _Lay Me Down To Sleep_ which will focus more on Ryoma. Edward's story is coming as well, but it will be a bit longer before it's ready to be posted.

Chapter 1

_Tuesday: 8:00 AM_

Ryoma stared moodily at the cup, as if hoping that if he put off taking his meds long enough the nurse would give up. The green and white pill looked up at him innocently. The nurse rolled his eyes.

"Come on Echizen, you know you can't have your tennis bag until you take your meds." They did this every time medication was handed out. After two months in therapy, it was practically a script. The nurse wouldn't have put it past the fifteen year old to do it on purpose just to annoy him. Ryoma was like that: amazingly intelligent but bored. Now that he had no tennis opponents to duel with on a regular basis, his sought his entertainment elsewhere. There was no mistaking that spark in the teen's hazel eyes though, he loathed his pills. The nurse couldn't help but wonder why the boy's parents insisted on it. Medication was meant to reduce depression to a manageable level so psychological treatment could be given. If the patient refused to cooperate, it defeated the whole purpose. But Ryoma was under age and his parents wanted to continue the prescription of Prozac originally given.

Ryoma let his shoulders sag, admitting defeat (for the millionth morning in a row), and gulped back the pills. The nurse handed him the hostage tennis bag and Ryoma slung it over his shoulder, intent on playing the one thing that gave him a sense of normality. He couldn't afford to get out of practice. Momo-senpai was visiting in a few days after all. He couldn't let the big oaf think he actually had a chance of _winning. _

He bounced the ball absentmindedly, allowing his mind to wonder as he practiced. The cement wall was his only opponent as Saving Grace Mental Hospital was, for reasons unfathomable to Ryoma, lacking a tennis court.

Momoshiro always visited on Sundays, since they both had the day off from their respective schools. He always tried to talk about medication schedules and therapy and getting _better. _Ryoma tried to shut him down nicely (for Ryoma) on these topics. Momo-senpai didn't seem to understand that it didn't get _better. _It had always been like this. Sometimes something would let Ryoma forget for a while and be content (like tennis, or Seigaku, or going for burgers with Momoshiro) but the gnawing emptiness always came back.

His parents hadn't visited in a month. Hadn't written since he'd gotten here, shortly after he'd been released from the other hospital. Part of him resented them. Momoshiro came once a week, no matter what; ignoring homework and passing up the chance to hang out with other _normal _people to visit him (for reasons that mystified Ryoma). The rest of the regulars visited when they could too, sending letters and e-mails in between. If they could manage it, why couldn't his own parents?

The rest of Ryoma had simply come to accept it. His parents, much as they cared about him, had never meant to have children and it showed. Rinko was an up and coming lawyer who barely had time for a husband, let alone raising a child and though Nanjiro was around the house more, he was barely an adult himself. He stuck to teaching tennis and left Ryoma to discover the rest on his own. Neither of his parents had ever been terribly reliable for the boy and he'd learned to adjust.

Ryoma watched the ball bounce against the wall again and returned it with his racket for the millionth time. He'd been doing drills like this since he was big enough to hold a racket. It required little thought and so, often resulted in him thinking about things he found easier to ignore. He pushed his thoughts of his family to the area of his mind reserved for the bouts of insomnia occasionally caused by the god damned Prozac.

He steered his mind toward a safer topic: the new psychologist that had taken on his case. He'd hoped (rather foolishly) that if he drove away enough doctors, perhaps they'd give up. Instead, a doctor had _come out of retirement_ in order to work here. He wasn't entirely convinced the events were unrelated. On top of that he'd been put in _group therapy,_ forced to listen to a bunch of annoying idiots whine about how unfair life was.

He couldn't wait till Sunday.

___________________________________________

Ed tapped his fingers on the flaking plastic of the table as he shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair that were the only furniture in the small visiting room aside from the empty chair that sat, innocently empty, on the other side of the table, which was the root of the problem. It wasn't supposed to be empty. _Al _was supposed to be sitting there. The fact that he wasn't meant that his younger brother was _late._ Al was never late. Ed's mind ran rampant with possibilities of what could have happened to his naïve little brother. Car crash, forgetting his pills, kidnapped…

Ed forcibly shut down that line of thought. He heard the squeak of the door and looked up.

"Hello Brother. Sorry, I got caught in traffic." Al smiled and the older blonde didn't have the heart to be angry with him. Al was limping more than usual, Ed noticed. Even with his cane (a gift from Ed for his birthday. It was dark blue).

"What's wrong with your leg?" Ed asked, using the strange hodgepodge language that only he and Al could comprehend. It was a mix of German, English and Japanese, designed mostly to overcome the fact that, after all these years, Ed wasn't quite fluent in any of them. Al had been the one to come up with the idea, after he observed how frustrated his brother was at being unable to think of the necessary word in a specific language. To be fair, the older boy did know eight languages.

Al blinked at the question. He'd barely noticed it was worse than usual this morning. How had Brother noticed? "Just weather I guess. It always gets worse when it gets cold."

Ed looked somewhat soothed at least. "Just remember to take your medication okay? What did the Doctor say about the operation?"

Al sighed. "I'm not a candidate after all. The damage is too severe. He referred me to another specialist, Dr. Marcoh. He wants to start me on a different medication." Ed nodded, not entirely satisfied. The last Doctor, a man named Cornello, had been an ass but the treatment had looked promising.

"Just keep me posted okay?" Ed smiled to cover up the guilt that started to bubble up. If he'd just a bit faster…he gave himself a mental shake. He couldn't get lost in memories now. It would upset Al.

Al gave a nod of agreement before changing the topic of conversation. "I heard you're getting a new therapist. Group therapy too?" Al grinned, knowing that the idea of group therapy would irritate his brother. "Think it'll help?"

Ed grumbled. "Does it ever? They'll come in, show us some funny pictures, try to get us to talk about our feelings and give us new pills. The only difference is that they'll be torturing three of us at once instead of doing it one at a time."

"At least try to think positively Brother. Roy says you'll never get better if you don't try in therapy." Al reasoned; worry practically oozing out of every pore. Ed mumbled something about stupid bastards who couldn't mind their own business but agreed to try, if only for his brother's sake.

"He wants to come visit you next week."

Ed sighed. "If that bastard wants to have chairs thrown at his head, that's his business. Just don't expect me to get along with the asshole." He leaned back in his chair, plastic creaking for years of misuse. "Not like he'd understand what I said anyway."

"He's trying Brother. He can understand what you say most of the time, and his German is getting better too. Please, just talk to him? He's worried about you." Al pleaded, knowing already that Ed would give in. Ed never had been able to say 'no' to him.

"Fine. I'll listen to the bastard. But if he makes any short jokes…"Ed growled. Al laughed loudly before moving to safer topics like school and their latest research topics. Two hours later, when Al had to leave, he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride when he saw Ed looking happy and relaxed for the first time in weeks.

______________________________________

Yami was not happy.

Now to be fair, he had a lot to be upset about. Being stuck in a puzzle for 5000 years was enough to irk even the most patient of people, and Yami had never been particularly patient, but he had Yugi and usually that was enough to keep him happy. Not this time. He could (and frequently did) put up with psychotic megalomaniacs chasing after him on a regular basis. A quick shadow game and they were usually incapacitated. He could even tolerate the abomination his Light referred to as 'school' when it was necessary. What he couldn't put up with was being called insane. He was perfectly sane. Just a little…dead. But Yugi's grandfather had been persistent.

'_Grandpa had a point Yami. Most healthy people don't have a 5000 year old voice in the back of their heads. Of course he's going to think there's something wrong. He saw me talking to myself.' _Yugi reasoned.

Yami grumbled. _'You weren't talking to yourself. You were talking to me. You're not crazy.'_

'_He couldn't have known that. It was a perfectly reasonable conclusion to jump to. We'll just have to convince them we're okay, so they'll release us.'_ Yugi gave a mental shrug. _'We've got a group therapy meeting tomorrow. We just need to prove to the therapist we've recovered.' _Yugi accepted his dark half's grumble in response as agreement.


End file.
